Steel rod material of that type typically employed in the reinforcing of cast concrete structures, commonly referred to as "re-bar", is formed into various reinforcing shapes and profiles by bending machines from an infeed of either straight rod re-bar of standard 40 or 60-foot lengths, or re-bar material fed from a coil.
In the case of coil fed re-bar material delivery it is first necessary to remove the coil bend set as the re-bar is stripped and fed from the unwinding coil so as to deliver a straightened material to the bending machine for processing. Typically the apparatus employed for straightening and cutting of coil fed re-bar material incorporates two separate banks or stages of rollers set to operate perpendicularly upon the ribbon of re-bar material fed therethrough from the coil. One set of rollers are adjustable to correct and straighten coil bend set curvature in the horizontal plane, and the other set of rollers are adjustable to correct and straighten coil bend set curvature in the vertical plane. Exemplary coil re-bar straightening machines operable on the foregoing principal and profile are those as are respectively taught in U.S. Pat. No. 3,916,662 to Arnold dated Nov. 4, 1975, and U.S. Pat. No. 4,048,825 to Dastrup et al dated Sep. 20, 1977.
Other and mechanically more complex apparatus that operate to straighten coil fed re-bar, with articulated on the fly lever adjustment features to compensate and correct for dimensional variations of the infeed product to be straightened, are exemplified by the respective teachings of Cloup in U.S. Pat. No. 4,719,781 dated Jan. 19, 1988, and U.S. Pat. No. 5,345,804 to Carrare dated Sep. 13, 1994.
Lastly, the teaching of Corbin in U.S. Pat. No. 4,949,567 dated Aug. 21, 1990, shows a two stage two plane apparatus and method for straightening wire by employing a bank of horizontally adjustable rollers to correct the cast characteristic, and a vertically adjustable roller to correct the helix characteristic.
The applicant herein, by his invention teaches an apparatus and method which provides both new and novel approaches to effect the simple and efficient straightening of coiled reinforcing bar material for delivery to processing and converting machinery.